The money home: $8 billion and counting

Sri Lankans working abroad sent home a record US$8.07 billion in 2025. Here’s why that money matters more than almost any other.

If you’re a Sri Lankan in Melbourne, you probably know the routine: a transfer home at the end of the month, for parents, a sibling’s school fees, a roof repair. Multiply that by hundreds of thousands of people around the world, and you get one of the biggest sources of dollars Sri Lanka has.

Why it matters

Remember the dollar jar from our explainer on the 2022 default? Sri Lanka needs dollars to buy fuel, medicine and food from abroad. Money sent home by workers overseas goes straight into that jar. When remittances slowed during the crisis, the jar emptied faster. Now they’re at a record, and they’re one reason the recovery has held.

Every transfer home is a small loan to the whole country’s dollar jar.

What the number doesn’t show

These figures count money sent through banks and formal channels. They don’t say how much comes from Australia in particular, and they don’t show what it costs the people sending it. If you send money home from Melbourne, we’d like to hear your story: info@thedosagemag.com.

Source: Central Bank of Sri Lanka figures, as reported by Ada Derana Biz (January 2026). All figures in US dollars.